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Gal

Dear Word Detective: Where did the term “gal” originate, meaning a girl or female, or a female older than early teens? And what age group does it include? Did it always refer to females? — Cliff.

Now there’s a word I haven’t seen in a while. In fact, I was just thinking about it, and I came to the conclusion that I have never actually used the word “gal” in a non-sarcastic or non-jocular sense (that is, as a serious synonym of “girl” or “young woman”). One’s mileage may vary, of course, and the word certainly seems to be alive and well in tabloid-esque news headlines (“Charlie Sheen’s Party Gal Reveals All About 36 Hour Party Binge”), although the apparently eternally seductive rhyme of “gal pal” obviously explains many of them (“George Clooney gal pal Elisabetta Canalis shocked he’s staying single,” Vancouver Sun, 1/24/2011).

My aversion to “gal” is, obviously, generational. I remember my father using it un-selfconsciously, and it was accepted popular slang as of the 1950s and 60s (“Discussing cool and the degrees of coolness, one boy reported: ‘If you like a guy or gal, they’re cool’,” Newsweek, 1950). But by the time I was in college, “gal” applied to a young woman was considered as disrespectful and demeaning as “chick” or “girl.” I guess I absorbed the zeitgeist of my youth pretty thoroughly, because to this day I’m uncomfortable even using the word “girl” for anyone over the age of about twelve. “Gal”? Fuhgeddaboudit. In the 1940s, however, both “gal” and “girl” were applied to women in their twenties, thirties and beyond without, apparently, a second thought (e.g., “His Girl Friday,” a 1940 movie starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and the widespread use in the 1950s of “gal friday” to mean a female assistant).

The fact that the semantic social fortunes of “gal” and “girl” have waxed and waned in concert is not surprising given that the two are, drum roll please, actually the same word. “Gal” first appeared as slang in England in the late 18th century and originated as a Cockney pronunciation of the word “girl.” It was considered, not surprisingly, an abomination by language arbiters of the day (“Improprieties, commonly called Vulgarisms, [include] … Gal for girl,” The Columbian Grammar, 1795). Interestingly, the “lower classes” weren’t the only ones putting their stamp on “girl” at the time. By the mid-19th century the upper crust of London were speaking (and writing) of “gels,” which was simply “girl” with an upper-class (or affectedly upper-class) pronunciation. On the Gilligan’s Island Scale of Social Class Markers, one can easily picture the blustering Skipper blurting “gal” in every third sentence, while zillionaire Thurston Howell III would definitely say “gel” in his Locust Valley Lockjaw (the stereotypical upper-class American style of speaking through clenched teeth, named after the wealthy North Shore of Long Island). As far as I can tell, “gel” never really established a foothold in the US outside of ruling-class redoubts such as Grosse Pointe and Greenwich, but it’s still used today in Britain, often to mean, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “an upper-class or aristocratic young Englishwoman.”

Incidentally, if you’re wondering where “girl” itself came from, you’re in good company. No one knows for sure, although etymologists have several fairly complicated theories. All we know for certain is that “girl” first appeared in the written record in Middle English (as “garl” or “geerl”) meaning simply “a child” of either sex. Use of “girl” to mean specifically “a young woman” dates to the 14th century.

I have just been told by two black female co-workers that the term”gal” means female horse. So when older white men call them gal they are calling them a horse. It is a negative word for black women when white males call them that. All this is new to me.

uh – black slavery = GAL
men – got boy and son – to strip them of adulthood and dignity of family bonds – it removed their status as “productive adults”
women had to have an equivalent and gal became the word of choice – and as far as I am led to understand had some relation or bearing to livestock …

It is not only negative but derogatory and insulting and the horse reference is ringing bells for me – I found my version of it in historical slavery archives … so it IS out there if this “word detective” bothered to go LOOK around – My VERY british family never uses the word however my sold into slavery and got out side uses it LOTS so – YOU figure it out …

Gal means woman. It can be prefaced with young or old, or any descriptive pronoun. There is no racial slur attached. I prefer it rather than call everyone Guy – which is a man’s name, specifically Guy Faulks, who was hanged by James I of England.

A colleague referred to women generally as gals during a presentation. An African-american lady politely approached him afterward and advised him of the negative connotation of the word “gal” from the days of slavery. While I am sure he will not use the term in the future and had no idea that the term was ever pejorative the encounter left me puzzled. My family are all immigrants who arrived in the US after the civil war. Naturally, I have learned that there are some words that are currently considered racist or show a lack of sensitivity and do not use them. I also know that there are words that have had other popular meanings in the distant and near past that are unused now. Gal is one of them. To bring up a 150+ year-old meaning of a common word that has had so many other meanings since then and to be insulted by it is a troubling sensitivity. People cannot be held to that standard of “political correctness” and expect to have any communication at all. Any word, if used sarcastically, or disrespectfully can offend. We need to concentrate more on context and currency and let the past remain the past.

I have been frustrated to no end by two coworkers who insist that the use of the word “gal” is pejorative and should never ever ever be used. I do not like referring to our young adult female students at the college “girls” as it seems diminutive, and condescending. I’ve spent half my life in the south, and “gal” is frequently used as a kindly female equivalent to “guy” (as girls are to boys), and frankly context is relevant. Just as there is nothing wrong with the word “boys”, calling an adult male “boy” is bound to end in offense… thus context is relevant. Being told that the world “gal” can only be judged by its period of use during black oppression is rather frustrating to me, as unlike other more provocative words, its status as good or bad seems highly variable.

I would have found it interesting to know where in the US the Word Detective and the above commenters are from. I travel a lot. I have lived above the Mason-Dixon line and below it.
I have spent a lot of time mixing with “horse-people” from Cowpokes to Olympic English Jumpers and Marathon Driving, around those from grassroot backgrounds to the very affluent. Gals is alive and well.
As a feminist I have always embraced it as these folks use it. (Excuse my homey regionalism…) It’s nice not to have to bend to the formality of men and women, while appreciating that no one over 11 wants to be called a boy or girl (and why.)
Gal is the female version of guy. Plain and simple. As a woman I don’t always want to be lumped in with the guys, or left out because I’m not one of the guys. Out West the words “Guys and Gals” is often used to inclusively address a group of mixed sexes and ethnic background is left out.
Now, calling a woman a “female” really ticks me off when the word man or guy would be used for th

The word gal is as derogatory as the n word. You don’t call an African American man boy and you don’t call an African American woman gal. If you are not African American you do not get to decide whether I should or should not be offended by the term.

You can be offended all you want. That is your prerogative, but it does not mean that someone was being offensive by using the term “gal” to describe someone of the female sex. It would be gracious of you to understand that not everyone is trying to put others down.

I am in my early 20’s and an BLACK!!!! Let me say, it is your reverse racism that keeps our country in the 1960s. We self identify as BLACK now, when was the last time you heard a white person say “i am a irish/italian/ french american?” “GAL?” C’mon. If a white person wants to offend you, they know all the right words to use. This is not one of them. I wouldn’t let a white person address me as boy!!!! That does not make the word “boy” racist. Gal is not a racist word on its own, and comments like yours ensure that we will have racism in the future.

I am a recent transplant from ATL to Boston.There are not many black people here (that are American born and not Dominican immigrants)

I have found very quickly that saying maam is considered offensive to any woman who is insecure about their age.I asked my my boss, who is female, and she explained that since women up here dont hear it every day, it makes them feel old. My boss, who says their insecurities does not make “maam” politically incorrect. She actually has told me to feel free to continue to call her maam. She says she views it as a part of my culture, and to ask someone to change their culture is more than just politically incorrect.

In Alice Walker’s novel ‘The Color Purple’ Corrine, a missionary in the beginning was called Gal by a store clerk. (it’s also in the movie) on her death bed in the book, she remarked about how she was treated like ‘an ordinary nigger’ by that store clerk. maybe there is some racial history there. maybe the song ‘ragtime gal’ is racial. hard to say. there seems to be some correlation.